Belated Post

Reading others posts I often feel like I’m being small-minded or self-centred here, going on about my life and things I’m doing when they’re talking about world issues and debating the nature of people and society. Then I remind myself that not everything has to be important and world-changing, that although obviously there are issues that are important and affect lots of people – and I admire those who attempt to tackle them – it’s their choice to do so and it’s not something I intended doing here. This was always meant to be a place of simple things, small when compared to the rest of the world but maybe all the more important for that.

On which note. . .

The last little while has been hectic, with every spare moment spent weeding and transplanting in the garden, cutting and sanding inside. Not much writing going on at all, though still the occasional rejection pops up in my inbox. But at last I’m taking a day off to enjoy it all, sitting in the sun with my laptop, a light breeze drifting across, and flies landing to tickle my bare toes. After writing this maybe I’ll work on my novel for a bit, maybe read a book. The noise of traffic is reasonably distant today. Blackbirds are singing, baby starlings making their grating cry, four or so babies are in the bird bath at a time – its hard to count because they keep swapping in and out – spraying water everywhere. Meanwhile sparrows, robins and blue tits dive among them all and pigeons – for the moment – are nowhere to be seen. Bliss.

The plants have leafed-up so well in the last week or two that you can’t see more then a few feet at a time, and flowers are coming out all over the place. We even have our first rose out: a single pink bloom on a rose that clambers over an arch. Something we’ve discovered in this our second year of having cottage garden style planting, is that it can be terribly awkward to weed – seedlings generally look pretty alike, and you don’t want to go pulling up your years new plants instead of the weeds! Point in its favour though – between returning plants, new ones coming up from self-sown seed, and spares put in from collected seed, the garden seems to be taking care of itself pretty well. If you forget about the few things needing pruning, and the weeding, the sowing seeds and potting up. . .!

The front garden’s coming along. We’ve maybe sorted out where the drive is going, and we’ve started planting. Mainly because there were so many plants we kept saying, ‘we’ll put that in the front as soon as it’s sorted’ for that we didn’t have room for anything else! It’s a hodge-podge now of half-dug grass, weeds growing in the bit de-grassed but not dug over; a hedge half out; the rough outline of a drive marked with wonky lines of bricks; beds somewhat planted with small shrubs; trellising in with things planted to climb up it but they’re too small to reach yet.

Inside everything’s rather a mess too, since the kitchen’s in two separate rooms and stuff that’s normally in one place has been packed away until things are a bit more sorted. But we can’t do much of anything until the new cupboards get built—

But I’m taking a day off, as I seem to have to keep reminding myself. So here’s to a gorgeous day, hopefully without any more sunburn coming my way!